


Saltless Ocean and Sandless Beaches

by sciencebutch



Series: Tumblr Prompts [15]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, F/M, im sorry.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19892800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: A story of futility.





	Saltless Ocean and Sandless Beaches

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "things you said that i wish you hadn't"

There is a certain futility to all of this, he knows. The ocean has the tangy scent of the Time Vortex. The sand under his trainers is level and flat, like the grated platform of the TARDIS control room. Nothing is as it should be—there’s no salt in the air, no wind or chill.

It’s like a hallucination or simulation or illusion or a dream. Or nightmare.

But a sun burns outside and he feels like he’s burning up with it. His hearts shrivel from the heat, his throat is on fire. The backs of his eyes are set ablaze.

The thing about humans—about foolish, stupid, _wonderful_ humans—is that they have no filter. It’s like they talk, and they talk, and they _talk_ and they—they don’t _understand_. They say things about concepts they can never comprehend. They speak complements and insults they don’t mean. They make promises they can never keep.

“Am I ever going to see you again?” her voice teeters and wobbles, and then falls and shatters, dashed against the rocks of Bad Wolf Bay by the waves that smell like the Vortex instead of salt.

She promised him forever.

“You can’t,” he replies.

She promised him _forever_.

But what’s forever for a human? 80 years? A drop in the proverbial temporal bucket for a Time Lord.

He should’ve known better. _Rassilon_ , he should’ve known better. But he didn’t, he _didn’t_ , because Rose, his _Rose_ , was all pink and yellow and perfect—and how could he say she was wrong, when she spoke with such conviction?

She promised him forever.

He wishes she didn’t.

They’re on a beach.

Well, she’s on a beach. He’s simply converting a copy of his body into light and sound waves and amplifying them so they reach past the void and into her universe. A multi-dimensional copy-and-paste.

And there’s a certain futility to it, him being here but _not._ The ocean doesn’t smell of salt, the sand isn’t soft beneath his feet, and he can’t touch her, and she can’t touch him, and he wants to ask, wants to ask her: who will be there to hold his hand now?

This is all real, but it isn’t real enough.

Rose’s hair is whipped around, ensnared by the breeze. She takes a trembling hand and tucks it behind her ear.

He would give anything to feel the same wind as her, have his coat flutter and flap with it. Smell and taste the salt that’s surely on her lips now. He’d give anything, but he’s already burning up a sun, and as far as things go, there’s not much more than that to give.

He wishes she didn’t promise him forever. He wishes humans would think before saying things, wishes they wouldn’t say—wouldn’t say—

“I love you.”

(That’s the last thing Rose says to him. It’s like his wildest dreams and worst nightmares come to life.)

“Quite right, too,” he says, his voice cracking and crumbling along with his resolve.

And now it’s his last chance to say it, his last _chance_ , “And if it’s my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler—“

The sun dies for good, and he thinks he dies with it, because what else could cause this all-encompassing searing heat, other than an oncoming regeneration?

He feels water on his cheeks, and he thinks maybe—just maybe—when he blinks and opens his eyes, he’ll be there, on the coast of Bad Wolf Bay, with sea foam lapping at the sand and splashing onto his face. And she’ll be there and solid and _real_.

But the water that hangs off his chin is too warm to be from the ocean.

And the words that hang off his lips remain there, as they always have. And they aren’t spoken, and they never will be.

It’s not like they needed saying, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](https://azirafelesbian.tumblr.com/) !!


End file.
